A Greening Dragon in the Desert? China’s Role in the Geopolitical Ecology of Decarbonisation in the Eastern Mediterranean

The new geopolitics of energy in the Eastern Mediterranean is not determined by hydrocarbons anymore. A significant expansion of renewables is underway. Driven by a surge in ‘Green Finance’ and decarbonization policies, this development changes conventional relationships of dependency. This takes place in an environment, where Asian and Western energy security strategies rapidly evolve in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean play a central role in this repositioning. China, far from merely being a dinosaur, is the largest producer of renewable energy. It also invests in infrastructure abroad, including Egypt. The largest Arab nation not only seeks to become a global energy hub, but also a decarbonization champion, as reflected in the hosting of COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. This article will look at these developments, including its internal and external contradictions to understand the motivation behind China’s commitment to Egyptian solar expansion. It will demonstrate that, while part of a global political economy of decarbonization, China’s main motivation for investing in renewables in the Eastern Mediterranean remains geostrategic, tied to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This, in turn, informs how we think of the Geo-Political Ecology of Decarbonization in the region.Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Onlin

Public hearings as a venue for representation and participation in reform era China

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you.Since Reform and Opening Up in 1978, China gradually made significant changes in its economic and legal system. These systemic changes soon led to social and political developments while the party-state regime remained still. Today's China does not have formal mechanisms of political representation such as elections. However, the rapid changes in the economic and social environment have produced new and mostly informal ways of political participation, such as protests, petitioning, and online public campaigns. Facing a more assertive society, the state responded to the need for political participation and representation with a project of 'administrative democracy'. This new government project mostly involves different mechanisms that enable citizens to participate in policy making. Citizen participation in public administration has become pati of the official reform agenda in China since early 2000s. The administrative and legislative public hearings practiced in China are among the earlier examples of such institutionalized public participation. The existing literature on public hearings mostly focuses on the efficiency of the public hearings as a policy tool and their impact on policy-making. My research focuses on the effect of these institutions on the public perceptions about the state and public perceptions about citizens as political actors. I analyze the participant selection mechm1ism of public hearings, participant demographics and the relationship of the participants with the officials and the broader public in Guiyang, Wuhan and Qingdao. Qualitative data from these three cities, which are located in different socio-economic development zones, suggests that (1) both participants and the broader public see public hearings as a venue for political representation rather than a mere policy-making mechanism, and (2) participants use different strategies to achieve their goals in public hearings and create awareness in the broader public. My research methods are semi-structured interviews with public hearing participants, expert interviews with scholars and officials who designed the hearings in China and an analysis of the written and online media coverage of the public hearings

Epidemiological, Clinical, and Laboratory Features of Children With COVID-19 in Turkey

Objectives: The aim of this study is to identify the epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory features of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in children